"People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid."
- Soren Aabye Kierkegaard (1813-1855)

Friday, March 25, 2005

I looked at Slate for the first time in awhile today

Hi everyone. It's just past 8 on a Friday, I'm still in the office and I'm a little tired and getting ready to go, so what do I do? I start pulling up websites I haven't read in awhile. I could be doing that at home, but for some reason I just like my office when I'm all by myself. I have my XM radio on and other than things getting a little warm, I'm comfortable.

Okay, so anyway, here is something I ran across. I haven't read slate in awhile, but here is a piece Landsburg wrote on Social Security that is pretty interesting.

"Now (and I am indebted to my colleague Alan Stockman for driving this point forcefully home), there is probably very little we can do right now in terms of deciding who gets what in the year 2020. That's because any decisions we make are subject to reversal through the political process. In 2020, old people either will or will not have the political clout to claim a bigger share of the pie. If they have that clout, they'll use it, and if not, not. And they won't be bound by anything we decided to do back in 2005."

First good point. Regardless of what we decide today, the old geezers are probably going to screw us when we get there. Don't take this the wrong way, but the only way to insure that they don't screw us is to start executing people when they turn a certain age...let's say 65. Then social security isn't a problem at all. In any case, that isn't Landsburg's point, but I think it is an important one that isn't considered too much. There is good reason not to consider it though. We can't not act because we expect to get screwed in the future...we have to try and find a way to make it so the old geezers don't feel the need to screw us. Hence Landsburg comes down on the side of the private accounts. Read the article here for his explanation.